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the Trojan War

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if it was fought, was the first great encounter between East and West

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the origin of the divide between us and the others

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a divide which continues to play itself out today in the context of Middle Eastern politics

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the Trojan War reminds us that the divide has always been there

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its roots are so ancient that they may never be eradicated

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Homer tells us about the war as an embedded reporter

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he has 100 different ways to describe how a man dies

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invites us to enter into the mindsets of maniacal killers, heroes, cowards, common soldiers, officers and generals, husbands, wives, and parents, all those gathered up in the furious onslaught of war, all those whose lives are affected by it and all those whose lives are destroyed by it

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Heinrich Schliemann (1822-1890)

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German businessman and a pioneer of field archaeology

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an archaeological excavator of Hisarlik, now presumed to be the site of Troy

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promoted the belief that the Iliad was based on history

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literally put Troy on the map

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an incurable romantic

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a hard-headed businessman

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made his fortune in the USA

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he had colossal energy and a phenomenal memory

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he knew at least a dozen languages including Arabic and Greek

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it is said that he was given a history book at the age of seven and a picture of the capture of Troy deeply affected him

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at the age of fourteen he heard Ancient Greek being declaimed and the sound of the language utterly enthralled him

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he was also a first-rate fantasist, he couldn't stop making things up which includes his account of his excavations

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he became utterly obsessed by Homer's legends and determined to prove that the Trojan War actually happened

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he lived the dream, he even divorced his first wife to marry a Greek girl Sophia with whom he had two children who he named Agamemnon and Andromache

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he used his fortune to finance archeological digs when archeology was in its infancy

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he became, in effect, the father of the study of prehistoric Greece, the time before their were any written records

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we are still in the grip of Schliemann's vision, someone who we know to have misinterpreted his data, and in the view of many scholars, did so deliberately

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Hisarlik

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modern name for Troy

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four miles from Aegean coast

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it would have been closer to the coast in antiquity

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but these settlements were not so close to the sea so they wouldn't be so vulnerable to pirates

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problems

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1. which level of Troy represents the one belonging to the Trojan War?

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there are nine levels

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Troy 1

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the earliest, the one at the bottom

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Troy 2

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Schliemann thought the legendary Troy was this one

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certainly incorrect

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Troy 6-8

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the most likely layer to be the legendary Troy

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Troy 9

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the latest, the one at the top

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the is no resolution yet

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Manfred Korfmann

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latest archeologist to do major work at the Troy archeological site

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excavated from 1988 to 2005, when he died

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discovered more than 50 Mycenaean cremations south of Troy with grave goods

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might be evidence of the Greek camp

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found evidence of a defensive ditch around Troy

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similar to the one described by Homer

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no strong physical evidence of the huge city described by Homer

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but found Bronze Age pottery shards over 5 acres

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in his view was a large city

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shows evidence that Troy 6 came to an end due to destruction caused by war

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what he couldn't say is whether the destruction was caused by the Mycenaeans Greeks

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if Troy was destroyed by the Mycenaeans, they didn't have long to bask in their victory

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Mycenaeans culture imploded a half century later around 1200 BC for unclear reasons

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what was Troy like?

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houses made of mud brick

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circuit wall that enclosed the houses made of masonry was 4-5 meters thick

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stone on the lower courses, mud brick on the upper

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some scholars doubt the Trojan War

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there is not conclusive evidence

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there is good evidence that it was burnt but no evidence that it was burnt by the Greeks

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Sir Moses Finley

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Homer's war, the war of the poems, and the war of the tradition, is a timeless event, floating in a timeless world

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there is some evidence that there was contact between the Hittites were in contact with peoples who might have been the Greeks

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whether the Trojan War happened will probably forever provoke disagreement